DIY for YOU!

Hey Everyone!

    I hope you all had a great holiday.  Today I have a few do it yourself projects that you can gift or keep for yourself.  The first is insanely simple!

     Sharpie projects.  All you need is a good ole sharpie and some clean plates or mugs.  I like to get mine from the dollar store so this is a cheap, easy diy.  All you do is decorate your desired item, and bake it at 350 degrees for about 35 minutes.

    This plate pictured above was a gift for my in laws.  I got all us kids to sign it and our niece.  Then found the perfect quote and made this for them at Christmas.  

     The next is a little longer, a little messier, but can be really cool and personalized.  Its a diy paint shoes.  The only supplies you'll need are shoes, (I just bought white ones from walmart), spray paint in your desired color, paint pens (can be found at most craft stores), and I recommend something you dont mind messing up (ie a box or sheet that can be damaged).  Also, you can use tape to tape off the bottom part of the soles if you wish.  I enjoy a slightly unfinished look, so I chose not to do this.  

     Spread a nice even layer of spray paint on the shoes.  Then you can decorate with writing or drawings or whatever you choose.  I chose to make Harry Potter shoes with my favorite quote on them.  Here are my results.

   Hope you all enjoy!

xoxoxo

     Trista

Gifts for Girls!

      Hey guys!   I'm so excited for Christmas!!  As promised, as I'm giving gifts away I am blogging about the ones I have already made.  Today I bring two very fun, cheap, lovely gifts for you.  

     The first is a body scrub I discovered on Pinterest.  The original recipe is found here.  It is the best recipe I have found yet.  Its only three ingredients and very simple to do.  

  All you need is:

• Glass jars.  Use glass!  I found mine for a dollar at Joanns.  Using plastic changes the chemical make up ( and the whole point of making it is to get away from chemical nonsense right?) and makes the scrub have a different make up, making it less effective.
• Coconut oil.  I recommend getting it from your local health food stores.  I got mine at Sprouts in the vitamin section.  It may seem a bit expensive, but it goes a long way and it has sooooo many uses.  
• Sugar
• Essential oils if you wish.  I used Lemon for this particular scrub.  

     All it takes is two cups of sugar, and about 1/4 to 1/3 cup of coconut oil.  Put your sugar in the bowl and gradually add your coconut oil, stirring every so often.  You want it to be moist, not soaking.  add a few drops of essential oils and mix it again just for good measure.  Then your mixture is ready to be scooped into jars and gifted away!  See, easy!  Plus the batch makes a good size quantity which makes it easy to get a lot of it done very quickly.  When using, just apply to wet skin and it will exfoliate and leave your skin feeling ridiculously soft.  

    The second takes a little more time but turns out to be really really cute.  They are mason jars in glitter.  The girls at work about died over them.  

  

   My recommended ingredients:

• mason jars.  This craft gets a little addicting as you play with color and if you mix glitter to make new colors like me, results in making a few little gifts for yourself.  
• glitter.  We used a variety.  I prefer Martha Stewart glitter.  That woman just gets it right every time.  Her glitter variety is nice as far as color and the grain size is perfect for coverage.  And just remember, a little goes a looooong way.  We bought huge jars of glitter and barely used any of them.
• mod podge.  Again a little goes a long way
• Sealant.  I got mine at Joann's.  It's a spray sealant that's about 8 bucks.  This will hold all your glitter to the jar and keep it from falling off.
• a cookie sheet.  This will help from getting glitter all over your work space and floor.  It will catch in there making for an easy clean up.
• a paint brush
• a funnel.  To help your glitter find its way back to it's jar home!

          So first things first.  Let's coat that mason jar in some mod podge.  Use your paintbrush to spread a nice, even, thin layer of mod podge to your jar.  I recommend only doing the sides of your jar so you can set it upright to dry.  Once your jar is coated, grab the color glitter you are going to use and start sprinkling it on to your jar over a cookie sheet.  As you roll your jar, some excess will fall, but as long as you have sufficiently covered it, it will stick make your jar beautiful.  For cleanup, just use your cookie sheet and funnel to move all your extra glitter back to its little jar home.  Let your jars dry ( I would say anywhere from a day to two would be more than suffice) before applying your sealant.  You should apply two to four coats, letting each coat dry in between.  Here are some results we had while making ours.

   

     Once they are all done, their uses are practical while being very pretty.  The smaller mason jars can be used for make up brush holders, pen holders, jewelry holders, or brush holders etc.  I have a larger one that I use to hold my most frequently used kitchen utensils.  

    Hope you all enjoyed this post!!!

xoxo  

Trista

The Rainbow Cake

Friends,
    I am about to change your lives as well as your parties.   This is all via the rainbow cake!  Dun dun daaaaahhhhhh!!!

    I got the original idea on pinterest.  It uses a lot of fancy ingredients like Sprite, jello mix, and some other stuff.  Mine is much easier.  All you need is food coloring, six bowls and spoons, white cake mix and the oil water and eggs as directed on the box.   Now lets begin.

    Mix your cake mix as directed on the box, then split the mix into your six separate bowls (Or however many colors you plan to do).  Add your food coloring and mix until you get the desired color.  Now, you will  dump the mixes into your pan.
 *note-every recipe I saw for this cake has you bake it into two 9 inch round pans for a layered cake. It also suggests that you have your mix separated from the most amount of mix (bottom of pan) to the smallest amount of mix (top of pan).  I did mine in a rectangle pan so really you can use the same amount of mixes.

     So, if you are doing the full rainbow, you're layers starting from the first you pour (so the bottom of the pan) are red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple.  It should hopefully look somewhat like this

Bake as directed on your box then use any icing you enjoy and Voila!   A fantastical rainbow cake.  Here are some more pics of the great outcome that I was super pleased with.

I really was super impressed and extremely happy with the outcome and my family really really enjoyed it.  Hope you all do too!

xoxo

   Trista

Just so you know....

Hey guys,

     I know I haven't posted much in the last few weeks.  That's a result of working retail, the holiday season being upon us and my already hectic schedule.  I've said it before, but I would be completely content being a housewife (eventually stay at home mom) who cooked, crafted, blogged, wrote and cleaned on a daily basis.  Imagine how this blog, my book and my pinterest would explode!  I do have a promise for all of you though, just so you know.  Once Christmas is here and done with, I will have soooooo much to share with you.  I have made a slew of presents this year that I am so excited to share, but as some of my readers are receiving these hand made gifts, I cannot divulge.  I can only promise, soon.

     Tonight however, I will share a few pinteresting recipes I have recently tested and loved (and so did husband!).  That's right, its all food, cus I heart delicious eats!

Recipe 1- yummer taters.

All you need is whole potatoes and the seasoning of your choice, and oil.  Just slice your potatoes almost all the way through.  Drizzle  some oil on them and seasoning of your choice.  I chose season all salt, garlic and pepper.  Throw in the oven at 425 for about 40 minutes.  Let it cool and enjoy.  It's a delicious, new, different way to enjoy baked potatoes.

Recipe 2- Crescent pizza

I did some slight changes with this recipe.  You will need all your usually pizza ingredients (sauce, cheese and toppings) and a tube of crecsent rolls.  Unroll all your crescent rolls, layer your sauce, cheese and toppings then roll up and bake about 15 mins at 350.  We also added garlic salt (you'll find we do this to about everything).  These were quick easy and filling.

Recipe 3- pizza cupcakes

Shut up, we like pizza ok?  Geez.  This one is also slightly adapted.  Again, you'll need basic ingredients plus a can of biscuits.  Once you get the biscuits out of the can, split them in half. layer your pizza toppings and place the top back on. throw in the oven about 15 to 20 minutes.  Let cool and enjoy.

 That's all for tonight folks.  Until next time.

xoxo

   Trista

Christmas Celebration!!!!!!!!!

Hey guys!!!!!  I know I haven't been on here in a while but I just had the craziest week! Anyway, today was a Christmas filled day at our house.  We got our tree, put up our lights and bought our nieces presents!

  However, I do have a few things to share with you guys!  I have tried a few new recipes that I have to share!  The first one is a really yummy breakfast treat.  All you need is a can of Pilsbury flaky biscuits, oil, brown sugar and cinnamon if you like.  Cut the biscuits in fours and plop them in your oil until they brown up a little bit.  Then coat with brown sugar and cinnamon.  It's delicious.  It did occur to me later in our day though, that if you did the coating in a shake and bake kind of manner, it would coat better and a bit more evenly.  I also had the genius idea to dip them in nutella.   These bad boys are awesome.  The original source can be found here.

 The next one I want to let you guys in on is a slow cooker spinach artichoke dip.  Prep time is about 15 minutes and you set it on high for two hours.  All you need is 1 cup of cheese, 1/2 cup of parmesan cheese, 8 oz of cream cheese, garlic salt (as much as you prefer), a can of artichoke hearts (or fresh if you prefer), and a bag of spinach.  Throw it all into a slow cooker, mix it up, cover, set on high for two hours.  Then dip bread into it, and go to heaven.  My husband is over-joyed with this recipe (the original can be here) .  Looks like the Latz household is about to get a little fatter!

 Until next time friends.  

xoxoxo Trista